What's flowering as forage in your area

  • Thread starter Curly green fingers
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Interesting one. Last year the hawthorn went absolutely bonkers, never seen so much flowering. This year however the prolonged cold weather has put it to sleep with lots of it not flowering or even producing blossoms.
 
Brick red pollen from chestnut going in today. The trees are not that close by so the bees are flying about a mile to forage on them.
Yes, red pollen sacs fairly frequent in all my hives but it's difficult to see a single bee on the blossom of the two nearby horse chestnut trees.
 
This has popped up haven't a clue what it is
 

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Had a walk around by the river wye and sourounding fields/parks and the blackberries are flowering well with all manner of insects on them,
I’ve never seen so much hb by the river before this being the first season anyway, lime trees are budding up nicely.
 
Had a walk around by the river wye and sourounding fields/parks and the blackberries are flowering well with all manner of insects on them,
I’ve never seen so much hb by the river before this being the first season anyway, lime trees are budding up nicely.
No blackberries out here yet but the cabbage palms have started. Amazing smell.
 

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I think we are in the June gap already here in N somerset. Hives are losing weight, the sycamore and chestnut are finished, hawthorne is going over, and white clover only just appearing.
 
Quite a number of frames yesterday had a scattering of purple pollen. Really deep purple, more so than shows in the photo. It's not a colour I've seen in pollen charts or in Margaret Adams book but I found an article claiming that it comes from Phacelia. Thoughts / comments?

Purple pollen.jpg
 
Quite a number of frames yesterday had a scattering of purple pollen. Really deep purple, more so than shows in the photo. It's not a colour I've seen in pollen charts or in Margaret Adams book but I found an article claiming that it comes from Phacelia. Thoughts / comments?

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A farmer nearby grew phacelia as a green manure crop last year, fantastic dark purple pollen.
 

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Quite a number of frames yesterday had a scattering of purple pollen. Really deep purple, more so than shows in the photo. It's not a colour I've seen in pollen charts or in Margaret Adams book but I found an article claiming that it comes from Phacelia. Thoughts / comments?

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I grow a patch of Phacelia for pollinators on my allotment = bumbles and hoverlies, very few honeybees.
 

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Blackberry out in force on the Hogs Back at Guildford
Just as well I put 3 drawn supers on the Thursley bees; aim to extract before the bell heather flowers; hope they don't overlap.

Without seeing it, I reckon the heather should produce this year, given the warmth and moisture this month.
 
Just as well I put 3 drawn supers on the Thursley bees
You have a fair bit of travel between apiaries - though not as much as one well-known beekeeper driving five hours between Ardnamuchan and Fife.
 

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